The San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2012

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has published the schedule of films for the summer event.The festival runs from July 12 through July 15th at the gorgeous Castro Theater.All films are screening at the Castro with plenty of time in between films for a break to nosh at some of the local eateries in the neighborhood. Buy your tickets and/or festival pass here.

Right off the bat, one of the films that I am most excited about seeing is The Canadian, highly recommended from friends who were fortunate enough to have seen it a few years back. I am also extremely excited to get a chance to see The Spanish Dancer with Pola Negri. This will be my first Negri silent on the big screen. We're treated to two films with Clara Bow featured, Wings and Mantrap. It's always a real pleasure to see anything with Clara Bow. Wings has recently been restored to much acclaim and has been on the fesitval circuit, I'm looking forward to it. It's a film I've always enjoyed on the big screen. The Mont Alto Orchestra will return to San Francisco for this, gotta love it.

Ernst Lubitsch gets to show off the pre-Hollywood spectacle version of a Lubitsch film with The Loves of Pharaoh. The amazing trailer can be seen here. The massive sets and huge cast look like it will out-de Mille Mr. Cecil B. de Mille.

Fans of Louise Brooks will have a new restoration of Pandora's Box to look forward to. This new restoration boasts some added footage. The fabulous Matti Bye Ensemble will play for the film, that's an event in iteself.

At the festival last year we enjoyed a rare Marlene Dietrich silent film, this year we will see one of her mentor's. Josef von Sternberg's late 1920's silent films The Docks of New York.

Not only will be swashbuckling with Antonio Moreno and Pola Negri in the aforementioned The Spanish Dancer, we'll get to see Douglas Fairbanks in his first big action costume role, The Mark of Zorro. Dennis James will be playing the mighty Wurlitzer and that will be a grand event as it always is.

We're also being treated to what promises to be another wonderful film starring the great Chinese actress Ruan Lingyu in Little Toys.

The 1925 version of the hoary tearjerker Stella Dallas starring Belle Bennett is reputed to be the best version. The fact that Ronald Colman is also cast holds no attraction for me whatsoever. (Snort, I am lying, bigtime) I'm looking forward to using a box of kleenex for this one.

Stephen Horne and Donald Sosin will fill out the musical slots as they capably and entertainingly do.

The remainder of the lineup is shown below. I hope to be doing a bit more blogging about what's in store in July. This is simply an amuse bouche to get your mouth watering, as is mine! See you in July!